‘A Line in the Sand’ in Fight to Release Thousands of Prisoner Abuse Photos

A federal judge is demanding that the government explain, photo-by-photo, why it can’t release hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of pictures showing detainee abuse by U.S. forces at military prison sites in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a courtroom in the Southern District of New York yesterday, Judge Alvin Hellerstein appeared skeptical of the government’s argument, which asserted that the threat of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda exploiting the images for propaganda should override the public’s right to see any of the photos.

He was “highly suspicious” of the government’s attempt to declare the whole lot of the photos dangerous. “It’s too easy and too meaningless,” he said.

Since 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union has been fighting for the release of photos from military investigations into prisoner abuse beyond those that were leaked from Abu Ghraib. The additional pictures reportedly show sexual assault, soldiers posing with dead bodies, and other offenses. The exact number of photos has not been disclosed in court, though former Senator Joe Lieberman has previously said that there are nearly 2,100.

Hellerstein first ordered the government to hand over a subset of the pictures in 2005. President Obama decided to release them in 2009, but Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the top American general in Iraq implored him not to. Congress then passed a law amending the Freedom of Information Act to allow the Secretary of Defense to certify that publishing the pictures could put American lives at risk, which then-secretary Robert Gates did.

The ACLU continued to fight the issue in court, and last August, Hellerstein ordered that the government needed to justify withholding each picture individually.

Six months later, the Pentagon has not done that – instead, government lawyers filed a motion in December repeating their position that all the photos were properly kept from the public. The government said that the Islamic State made use of past U.S. abuses when it executed hostages on camera, depicting them “in an orange jumpsuit – a symbol commonly associated with detainees housed at Guantanamo Bay,” and that Al Qaeda wrote about Guantanamo in a recent issue of its magazine Inspire.

Both groups could exploit the photos “to encourage supporters and followers to attack United States military and government personnel,” the government argued in the motion.

In court yesterday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tara Lamorte maintained that the Pentagon had already reviewed the photos in 2012. A Pentagon lawyer had brought samples of the various types of photos to senior Pentagon officials, who recommended against publishing them, she said.

Hellerstein did not agree that the 2012 review fulfilled his order. He also said he had originally decided that at least some of the photos should be released, even in the middle of the Iraq war, and did not see the situation now as any different, despite the new threats posed by ISIS. “We’re at a line in the sand,” Hellerstein declared. “I’m not changing my view.”

He gave the government a week to decide what it wants to do: appeal the order, or put forward a plan to comply with it. He suggested that the government could present the photos to him, in a closed session, and explain their rationale for keeping them secret. He also advised the government not to try to delay “the day of reckoning” by drawing the case out on appeal.

“I have to think that this is not an all or nothing case,” he said. “But the way the government has litigated has made it that way.”

This case echoes the Pentagon’s attempts to keep secret videotapes showing hunger-striking Guantanamo detainees being force-fed. The government has said that the videos could “inflame Muslim sensitivities overseas.” (The Intercept’s parent company First Look Media is among the media groups who are trying to get the videos released.)

The judge in that case warned this fall against allowing a “heckler’s veto” over the public interest. She cited one of Hellerstein’s comments from early in the photo litigation, that terrorists “do not need pretexts for their barbarism.”

Update, February 17th:

On February 11th, government lawyers wrote to Hellerstein asking for further clarification on how the government could comply with his order to review the photos individually, before they decide whether to appeal. Their confusion was “good faith” and not a delay tactic, they insisted, but the lawyer arguing the case for the ACLU, Lawrence Lustberg, responded by saying that “whatever the government’s intentions,” the request for more instructions will cause an unnecessary delay.

Update, February 18th:

Judge Hellerstein today issued an order giving the government until March 17th to explain to him “the factual basis” for deciding whether the photos can be released, or else lose its case. “At minimum,” he wrote, the government “must describe the categories of objectionable content contained in the photographs, identify how many photographs fit into each category, and specify the type of harm that would result from disclosing such content.” That rationale may be filed under seal, he said.

Photo: AP

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I wonder what Mr. “Yes ‘we’ can”, aka “think about ‘the future’ (as I see it)” could possibly mean? Whom could he be possibly mocking now?
~
theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/feb/11/barack-obama-kayla-mueller-islamic-state-isis-video

Barack Obama says 26-year-old US aid worker Kayla Mueller, who has been murdered by her Islamic State (Isis) captors, was a ‘great spirit’ whose work ‘stands in contrast with the barbaric organisation that held her captive’. The US president says his government did everything it could to try to free her. In a video Kayla Mueller posted on YouTube the humanitarian worker expressed her solidarity with the Syrian people.
~
Rachel Corrie

and then expect for them to believe in your smile and your “good heart”. Just that believe would be very disrespectful to them.

The USG and their accolytes have been torturing and savagely killing them and then they use those “aid workers” as spies many of them naively blinded by their “great spirit” combined with their moral and spiritual blind spots without ever knowing about it.

How could you be an “aid worker” after killing them and their families and destroying their lives? Some of them -very disrespectfully- and clearly showing their lack of empahty may even say “‘I’ haven’t killed them …”

The basic tenets that serve as moral principles to the USG seem to be that murdering people based on algorithmic patterns (including those double tappings obviously targetted at their families) using high tech and having a “responsible” media and legal system downplay it is fine and dandy. Murdering people with knifes and posting a video on youtube is not, that and only that is terrorism!

Something interesting I constantly notice is that even gringo academia participate in framing and supporting those illusions:

// __ BBC Ghost In Your Genes|Holocaust|NineEleven

youtube.com/watch?v=ly4TH0DP_qA

so, we carry ghost in our genes because of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, but they don’t when we bomb them? Oh, I think I may have gotten that one! It is all about bad genes, that is why they were using double tappings to kill their families while they were at it … Our maybe “rag heads” don’t have the right genetic make up for feeling and thinking?

“A federal judge is demanding that the government explain, photo-by-photo, why it can’t release hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of pictures showing detainee abuse by U.S. forces at military prison sites in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

O, but haven’t you heard? Obama wants to “move forward,” not dwell on the dim and distant past, such as these photos. So Obama will “move forward” — on everything, except the whistleblowers and journalists who are still being persecuted for their actions in the dim and distant past.

Why are many clinically certifiable psychopaths in the US so certain they are the arbiters what their betters should and should not see?

This kind of talk is similar to other flag wavers’ demands that dissidents ‘love it or leave it’, as if these blood thirsty human defects have some sort of divine right to exist and breathe where others cannot.

It’s Friday, and that means it’s time for the news hour. Funny how these stories read if you change the dates and locale?
– – –
The PBS NewsHour is brought to you by the Cotton Gin; by the Judah P. Benjamin Charitable Trust; by Confederate Liberty Mutual, an insurance fund for the 19th Century; and by viewers like you! Thank you!
JEFFREY BROWN: … the lawsuit seeking release of atrocity pictures from our detainee facility in Andersonville. For analysis we have David Brooks, columnist for the Richmond Sentinel, and Mark Shields, syndicated columnist. Welcome, gentlemen.
DAVID BROOKS: Thank you.
JEFFREY: So, what are they seeking?
DAVID: Apparently Matt Brady took a number of daguerrotypes of detainees at the facility in Andersonville, Georgia. A few were leaked in 1862. The additional pictures reportedly show sexual assault, starvation, our soldiers posing with dead bodies, and other offenses.
MARK SHIELDS: The Confederate Civil Liberties Union has had a lawsuit since then seeking the rest. Jefferson Davis’s administration says that all the photos were properly kept from the public. The government said that the Yankee press, and the Lincoln Administration, had made propaganda with previous claims of Confederate atrocities. Both groups could exploit the Andersonville photos “to encourage supporters and followers to attack Confederate military and government personnel,” the government argued in the motion.
DAVID: Yes. In court yesterday, Assistant C.S. Attorney Scarlett O’Hara maintained that the army had already reviewed the photos in 1863. An army lawyer had brought samples of the photos to senior government officials, who recommended against publishing them, she said.
MARK: Well, of course. Terrorist leaders like Abe Lincoln and Frederick Douglass would exploit them, demand the release of the surviving detainees –
DAVID: — Union army soldiers. Who, judging by the pictures, are no threat to our Confederate states any more. They’re badly emaciated, to say the least.
MARK: Nonetheless, they’re properly detained, and not eligible for protection under the Geneva Convention.
DAVID: Which doesn’t exist in this century. But Jefferson Davis and his government don’t want to be tied to this. Or the Army.
MARK: Are you saying that an honorable man like Robert E. Lee would have anything to do with this?
DAVID: Their captors aren’t wearing British uniforms. Even with daguerreotypes you can tell gray uniforms from red ones. Or blue. Whose Army is it, anyway?
MARK: Nonetheless, my sources in the Gray House tell me that these pictures should not be released. We’re in the middle of a war, David, and we have new threats posed by the Union offensive in the middle-east of Tennessee and elsewhere. Our allies will be offended by the pictures.
DAVID: France and Britain aren’t our allies yet, Mark.
MARK: The pictures won’t make them any eager to join our Cause. “We’re at a line in the sand,” Jeff Davis said. “I’m not changing my view.”
DAVID: No pictures, then. “Look away, look away, Dixie Land.”
JEFFREY: And now a story on the economic effects of the Union blockade on the cotton industry. For that we have Paul Solmon in Savannah, Georgia. Paul? …
-30-

Unfortunately, because Americans have allowed WAR CRIMES to be swept under the rug for years, we now have War Criminals embedded into Homeland Security Agencies and Law Enforcement positions who are now Targeting Activists, Journalists and other American Citizens for CRIMES within the US.

The santioning and promoting of these Ex-Military and CIA War Criminals is creating a new wave of crimes inside the US in politically targeting citizens like myself for crimes.

THEY are Bringing the WAR CRIMES back into the US NOW, and hiding their Criminal Personnel behind BADGES, churches, politcial and social organizations as well to spy on and target citizens.

Yes — it’s true. The US Border Patrol in Washington state, and other Homeland Security agencies, and personnel are targeting US Citizens for crimes, at home — inside the US, as well as engaging in other criminal operations through the Canadian Border.

There isn’t any chance to change things now because the technology is in the hands of the Homeland Security Organized Crime Syndicate who are using surveillance equipment, personnel and technology to politically target US citizens inside the US.

Both groups could exploit the photos “to encourage supporters and followers to attack United States military and government personnel,” the government argued in the motion.

Ms. Currier, that is one explanation, and certainly articles of this quality might help shake something loose. I would suggest, though, that the US gov’t may also be trying to redact the record for reasons of more permanence. Even after this conflict is over and the principals have lived out their lives, the story and the pcitures may still be hidden. We’re coming up on the centennial, in May, of the Lusitania sinking, and to this day we still don’t have an unredacted copy of the cargo manifest, nor any copy of the Board of Trade inquiry at all. No one’s still alive to be embarrassed by it, but it still might clear up some misconceptions about the Great War and — who knows? — maybe head off another one.

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
— George Orwell, “1984”

Finally there is a branch of the United States that is skeptical of the lies of U.S. war criminals -the judicial branch. More importantly, the judicial branch has the power to force some transparency -notably judge Hellerstein.

Let’s review the “Govt’s” claims…
(concerning the Abu Graib, Afghanistan “Salt Pit” & Guantanamo photos)
-the threat of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda exploiting the images for propaganda
-declare the whole lot of the photos “dangerous.”
—2004—
-Congress… passed a law …to allow the Secretary of Defense to certify that publishing the pictures could put American lives at risk, which then-secretary Robert Gates did.
-government lawyers filed a motion in December (2014) repeating their position that all the photos were properly kept from the public.
-the government argued in the motion that both groups (IS & Al Qaeda) “(would) encourage supporters and followers to attack United States military and government personnel.”
-the Pentagon still keeps secret videotapes showing hunger-striking Guantanamo detainees being force-fed. Their defense is that the videos could “inflame Muslim sensitivities overseas.”
—2011(concerning the Abbottabad raid on Bin Laden)—
-(in the aftermath of the Bin Laden killing/execution/assassination) President Barack Obama said he would not authorize the release of any images of bin Laden’s corpse, saying it would create a security risk. (I guess there is an ‘afterlife’. Photos of Bin Laden can kill from the grave)
-“It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence, as a propaganda tool,” the president told CBS news magazine 60 Minutes. (Already been done.)
-Former FBI Assistant Director Tom Fuentes said he would have similar concerns if photos of the terrorist’s body were made public. “You would see those images forever on television,” he said. “That could lead to more recruitment of future Al Qaeda members, making him a martyr.” (Already been done.)
-John Bennett, director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, wrote: “The public release of the responsive records would provide terrorist groups and other entities hostile to the United States with information to create propaganda which, in turn, could be used to recruit, raise funds, inflame tensions, or rally support for causes and actions that reasonably could be expected to result in exceptionally grave damage to both the national defense and foreign relations of the United States.”
(This has already been done by ISIS and AQ.)
There is now no reason to continue to keep any of these photos secret.
I do agree with some of the other bloggers on TI that these photos probably will never see the light of day.
However there is a silver lining to all this. While the U.S. Govt continues to ‘reach’ for any poor excuse to continue to keep evidence of their war crimes secret, it does bring a smile to my face to see these lying conspirators squirm.
There actually may be some flicker of light at the end of the tunnel.
Finally some good news. Thank you Cora for making this a happy Friday.

The whole idea of a democracy is that people can hold the government accountable for its actions. But when the government can engage in criminal activity and use security clearances to cover up their crimes then the people cannot hold the government accountable for its actions.

Kudos to the judge. Shame again on President Obama for holding these photos back and again acting like Dick Cheney. He should get a bumper sticker for his presidential motorcade saying, “What Would Dick Cheney Do.”

Obama is certainly the clever politician everybody said he was. He needs to keep this activity hidden forever so that he can be ready for his closeup. George Orwell, meet P.T. Barnum.

Neither misuse of Senatorial power in the pursuit of advertising, nor the creation in newsprint of a great public hero, is an invention of our age, which has not seen any betterment of the technique that erected [John C.] Frémont into a martyr … a figure of oratory and newsprint. That creation was almost enough to wreck the republic. It was enough to convince innumerable people born since the advertising stopped and its proprietors died, so that you will find it in the instruction given our children … that incompetence is courage, that self-seeking mutiny is statesmanship, that youth and purity of intention — if purity exists in the main chance — qualify a stupid man to lead armies and govern a nation, that martyrdom in headlines erases blunders and nullifies treason, that greatness is a loud noise.
—Bernard DeVoto, The Year of Decision: 1846 (published 1943)

Maybe the government is afraid that the photos will show the hypocrisy of denouncing the mistreatment of prisoners by ISIL/ISIS when we tortured,and killed prisoners in our custody who also were innocent of any wrong doing? How government officials can get on their high horse when it comes to torture and the killing of innocents by others and ignore their own complicity in torture and murder shows just how corrupt this government has become.

It seems strange to me that the government might object to releasing these photos and will fight in court to avoid their release but says absolutely nothing about the movie American Sniper which shows Americans killing innocent Iraqis. Why are we still over there creating more and more enemies and further increasing the danger to every American?

I’ll bet these photos will never see the light of day. If this Judge thinks he can cause their release I doubt his grasp of reality. They will be destroyed. If I were Obama I would order their destruction today and live with the consequences. This is what will happen unless a whistleblower gets hold of copies of some if not all of them and gets them to a WikiLeaks type of outfit.

The photos may very well wind up in the memory hole. Obama may be thinking not just of how bad it’ll look now, but in terms of his place in history. Orwell said it: “The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.”

Certainly, if we can pass off Custer and Patton as heroes, and the rebel slaveholders as a gallant lost cause, and our murderous war in the Philippines a century ago as a two-line footnote on the 1898 war, then we certainly can hide this one from future generations of schoolchildren.

The war on terror that was supposed to make us safer has done anything but. We drone bomb guilty and innocent alike in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Libya Iraq, Afghanistan and spy on literally EVERYONE including other leaders. We torture people, and try to justify it, and keep it secret. It’s no wonder everyone hates us.

For every person we kill, we create hundreds more enemies, until we have millions more than we ever had before the war on terror. How is that making us safer? And why isn’t everyone else just as horrified as I am?

maybe what your government’s evil actions are exactly what the military industrial complex wants: keep the war going for as long as possible to extract maximum profit. fan the flames of hatred. they want americans to hate muslims and vice versa, helping IS come into existence was part of their agenda, and drone terror can hardly be expected to foster peace which makes me think that it “winning” the unwinnable war is not the plan, prolonging it indefinitely is.

2004: “Hersh gave a speech last week to the ACLU making the charge that children were sodomized in front of women in the prison, and the Pentagon has tape of it”http://www.salon.com/2004/07/15/hersh_7/

The real reason for the atrocities on both sides is not moral (and/or religious) but economic. War (on terror, on America…) is about money and power (control) and that is the most important thing US citizens should understand. The shroud of liberty/faith is there just to hide the peddlers of destruction from the light of day.
This is evident to the people US is fighting all over the world because their economic reason for war is survival (when did US last fight a wealthy nation?).
So the moral conflict is actually there, between those that need to survive and those that want more.

The government(ours, the US) should be afraid, very afraid that these photos might(would) be used for propagandistc purposes. Let’s use some of their same reasoning for the public not to oppose mass surveillance, for this issue. If you’re not doing anything wrong you have nothing to hide. We, as a nation, must admit to our barbarity more completely than to say “We tortured some folks” as if that’s sufficient to remove the guilt let alone mend any of the broken people left in the wake of the torture. These things were and are being done in all our names and for those that can live with that, I don’t want to know you. Thank you for this story.

If releasing what the photos show is a potential threat to national security, then doing what the photos show must also be a potential threat to national security. Therefore, the person or persons who, at sometime before the conduct deemed a potential threat to national security was approved, authorized the conduct deliberately put our national security in potential jeopardy. Deliberately jeopardizing our national security, even if it is only potentially, is treason. (e.g. If you provide information to a foreign government, your conduct is considered treason because your conduct jeopardized national security…even if the foreign government doesn’t use the information.)

If the government truly believed that the conduct shown in the photos was a threat to national security, they would arrest and prosecute everyone involved, including those who authorized the conduct, for treason. Since the Obama administration has expressly rejected investigation and prosecution of those responsible for this conduct, we must assume that their argument that the release of the photos is a threat to national security is bogus and should not be taken seriously. (Assuming that they do take threats to national security seriously,) This is a fairly standard tactic that lawyers use when they have no other options. The lawyers know the argument is logically unsupportable but they hope the judge won’t figure it out. It doesn’t sound like this judge has figured it out but he does seem to have an inherent distrust of the claim. Let’s hope he figures it out, orders the photos released and jails for contempt anyone who interferes with the release of the photos.

The photo shows an unemotional torturer “just doing his job.” Notice the blood stains on his Khakis and his enlarged knuckles especially on the little finger. Sure sign that he has done personal beatings. These are your “patriot warriors” nobly protecting you 24/7.

the next government step with be to destroy the photos as they destroyed the tapes of its torture. The USG has zero [indeed negative] credibility in any matters involving human rights or civil rights. The USG is no longer a “Western” government and is an outlaw regime when it operates oversease while being an incompetent regime operating in the territorial confines of the US.

These photos shouldn’t be released, but every last person–from the top to the bottom–involved should be sent to prison. The reasons they should not be released are valid: People will get killed over the treatment shown, future prisoners will be treated the same way, and they constitute a massively valuable talking point against us. They can literally point to this stuff and say we are in fact The Great Satan. They’ll get lots and lots of recruits out of this. At the very least, if these people don’t go to prison, then they should be publicly named. There’s no room in civilized society for people who “just follow orders” or who in fact, love this kind of work.

Why shouldn’t they be released? Why shouldn’t the US be held responsible for its sins? The US certainly believes that everyone else in the world should be held responsible for their sins. If the US didn’t want retaliation for its actions, perhaps it shouldn’t have performed those actions in the first place. American Exceptionalism at its worst.

The only reason I can see for not releasing the pictures to the press and the Web would be for the same reason we don’t release medical examiners’ photographs, although we should show them to the courts — counsel for defense, prosecutor, the jury — as part of a criminal (and civil) trial. I think I can see DD’s point, that they should be material evidence for trials that should, must, take place. Someone should answer.

Well we have precedent. Were Graner, England and the others being indicted or charged with anything prior to the Abu Ghraib photos release? Would they have ever been if those photos hadn’t been released? To me at least the answers are rather obvious; and also apply to these photos. No one is going to be charged with anything if they’re not released (and perhaps no one if they are released). Thinking they’re being held back as evidence seems very naive and willfully forgetting recent history.

The pictures may implicate other service personnel, or, as CCR lawsuits have alleged, contractors. There’s also the question of command responsibility — Graner, England et al were underlings tried as Breaker Morant scapegoats.

Have you considered that the release might be needed for your own citizens to recognise what you have become?
You will only achieve change and have the possibility of it never happening again if people are held accountable for it “this time”.
It does no good to hide your atrocities from your own population. People should be informed of what their government does in their name.

Everything points to the conclusion that the US government and its military-industrial puppeteers, having become a sponsor of barbarism on par with the ISIS henchmen they created, are doing everything they can to prolong that bogus “war on terror” to extract maximum profit out of the insecurity sector* boom it creates.

By definition the “war on terror” can never be cleanly and unambiguously concluded. It is already an open-ended undertaking. But its hellish vigor could fade, and that would mean a new enemy would have to be created. Why not ride a little further on the “terrorism” craze. The US are themselves using terrorist tactics (drone strikes etc.) to fan the flames, and it is hard to believe that pure stupidity and not some ulterior motives are behind this. I hesitate to put forward the hypothesis that torture was ordered in order to further inflame the conflict. Many humans are apparently quite capable of sadism out of their own initiative, so that might be a sufficient explanation of why it could happen, and the scale of it could be explained by the usual wholesale dehumanization & demonization of the enemy. It is also obviously bad propaganda if your own atrocities are well documented AND you are claiming to occupy the moral high ground. I wonder why they don’t just destroy the evidence, though.

* insecurity sector: let’s not use that doublespeak word, security, for global insecurity through escalation of conflicts.

This objection is misguided. People outside of the United States already know a lot about what has gone on under the heading of “enhanced interrogation”, because it has been widely reported upon and — note — they are already very, very enraged. People *inside* the United States need to see these images.

Well if the photos aren’t published it’s a guarantee that no one will be sent to prison. And since you don’t want them published, you must be okay with that. You’d rather people get away with criminal torture, rape, and possibly murder of detainees than the US suffer PR consequences. Consequences which the US has rightfully earned and should suffer.

The real problem here is that this isn’t just our CIA Thugs this time. These crimes were committed by our patriotic, christian boys and girls–the ones we honor at the beginning of every NFL Game. our veterans.. Vets are everyone’s heroes and we sure can’t let the truth get out about these murdering mercenaries. Best to make them out as heroes in Hollywood Movies. I wonder if Clint Eastwood has thought of a sequel based in Abu Ghraib.

Veterans are the heroes and agents of banksters and corrupt pathological politicians. Veterans are “useful idiots” followers of a radical religion called ‘patriotism” who are actually destroying America politically,financially,ethically etc etc

If worse comes to worse…Obama can burn the photos, right? Like the CIA did with the torture videos. So…the downside of that would be the political hit…

But the only media I can find reporting this case are..Russia’s RT, and the UK’s Guardian (and the Intercept, of course)

So..not much political downside to destroying the photos when the population is hardly aware this is happening anyway.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves, if Alvin doesn’t give Obama what he wants, the prez can go over his head until he finds one of the many “Unitary Executive” judges: (if the prez does it, it is legal!!!)

i’m not entirely sure that at any given time i would have supported the issue of national security given the levels of consistent subterfuge perpetrated by our government and its lackeys, up to and including the president. what cut it for me was, first, iraq and then subsequent sins too numerous to write about. next, came the financial meltdown and the choices made to address it by obama and every mook that argued on the premise of too big to fail. absurd, just absurd. the point is that if we are actually bent on change that honors the american ideal of justice; if we are truly concerned about the future of YOUR children (i have none); and if we really wish to enjoy some semblance of sanity throughout this country then the pics have to be published and the cards left to fall wherever they may. this may be on a larger scale but it almost no different then what families go through when dealing with their dysfunction. expose this shit now.

ISIS seems to be setting the standard in terms of transparency regarding treatment of prisoners. The question is therefore whether the US should attempt to match it. President Obama lost some of his enthusiasm for transparency in government, when he found out what the government was doing. In the final analysis, the question becomes whether you wish others to see you as you really are, or as what you purport to be.

Indeed, Duce, although let me suggest that the gap between being revealed, and being seen as what you purport to be, can have its uses as the region of Night and Fog. That uncertainty, kept out of the light, can still intimidate the regime’s opponents. They only need know that the twilight zone exists, waiting for them.

“They only need to know the twilight zone exists, waiting for them.” I would add….and perhaps us. It seems like lately our weapons of war are filtering into are law enforcement agency’s. Maybe some nasty tactics will find there way home.

It makes me wonder if the situation and its end result is intentionally orchestrated by intel. Even with the Snowden leaks itself, because there’s still no mention of the far more severe violations occurring to citizens within u.s. borders.
I can see why heading into unethical genocide war, usg wants legal drugs everywhere, to broadcast that everyone’s being watched and that it’s perfectly acceptable according to usg to commit limitless abuses on Muslims, Russians, or anyone the media indicates. Yet still no “evidence”(according to usg’s own definition of evidence) of continuous limitless crimes on u.s. citizens, not a word, no “evidence” acceptable to media despite the piles of evidence everywhere.

Whether they release the photo’s or not, as with the fake 1% of the ‘torture report’ and its narrative that u.s. torture is occurring to the hated ethnic slurs way on the other side of the world not here and the subsequent predictable approval of the use of torture in general by the ‘majority’ of americans; It’s irrelevant because it seems to benefit usg’s obvious intentions in the near future.

If they are released, they will likely inflame tensions in the Muslim war. It should also inflame the conscience of every American. But so many are incapable of grasping and acknowledging who we really are and what we really do in this war on terrorism. It’s hard to break down the delusion of American exceptionalism/we are the moral ones/God is on our side/we are a force of good in the world.

Consequentialist arguments like this are, imo, much less compelling than the inherent need for Americans to be informed as to what the government is doing in our names/with our tax dollars – so that we can properly and effectively exercise our defining role as citizens of a union “of, by and for the people.”

Americans fancy themselves as a visual people (and, ironically, this is one of the things Islamic fundamentalists object to about us) and we need to see graphic depictions of things in order to respond to them collectively. Most of us need to see the abuse in order to truly grasp (or “grok”) the tragic depths to which our government and our military has sunk. We need to see the coffins of American men and women being off-loaded (like cordwood) at Dover, otherwise it remains an abstraction, a non-entity. We need to see images of these events in order to provide the means thru which our abject horror can finally be released and we finally, finally break the sickness-unto-death of hatred that is consuming our union.

Repression does nothing but prolong the day of reckoning – and, in the end, makes the reckoning even more difficult. We have already killed so much of what was good in us – as both a country and as individuals – and I dread what we may still yet become.

He gave the government a week to decide what it wants to do: appeal the order, or put forward a plan to comply with it. He suggested that the government could present the photos to him, in a closed session, and explain their rationale for keeping them secret. He also advised the government not to try to delay “the day of reckoning” by drawing the case out on appeal.

That’s all well and good, but I don’t see how that language is concretely going to stop the government, which has been stonewalling for years, from continuing the stonewalling. There must be some “legal” procedure available to a judge during a standoff due to stonewalling for no other reason but the need to ‘Cover Their Ass,’ to basically just snatch the photos out of the hands of the stone-wallers and produce them for the public to view. Years and years upon years of stonewalling after being called out to knock it off is the government’s victory, even when they are finally left with no other option but to produce something. An example of that would be “The (so called) Torture Report” summary producing, as anticipated, no consequence to the guilty parties.

The pictures might not be forthcoming because some of them may make the first Abu Ghraib set look mild. If any of the allegations in the CCR lawsuits regarding contractors had video or still photos, for instance. Rape, minors as prisoners, and other allegations that the public might ignore if in legal papers, but if in pictures it won’t look pretty.

There’s also this old allegation by Seymour Hersh, which is specific and alleges that film existed. If it does, ODOJ will definitely not want this to see the light of day, even if it is over 10 years on.

… And them and their descendants, to the last of their race, I, Alexandre Manette, unhappy prisoner, do this last night of the year 1767, in my unbearable agony, denounce to the times when all these things shall be answered for. I denounce them to Heaven and to earth.
— Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”

As a Survivor of childhood sexual abuse I must put forth your link in detail.
From salon
Hersh: Children sodomized at Abu Ghraib, on tape
Geraldine Sealey

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Topics: War Room, Politics News

After Donald Rumsfeld testified on the Hill about Abu Ghraib in May, there was talk of more photos and video in the Pentagon’s custody more horrific than anything made public so far. “If these are released to the public, obviously it’s going to make matters worse,” Rumsfeld said. Since then, the Washington Post has disclosed some new details and images of abuse at the prison. But if Seymour Hersh is right, it all gets much worse.

Hersh gave a speech last week to the ACLU making the charge that children were sodomized in front of women in the prison, and the Pentagon has tape of it. The speech was first reported in a New York Sun story last week, which was in turn posted on Jim Romenesko’s media blog, and now EdCone.com and other blogs are linking to the video. We transcribed the critical section here (it starts at about 1:31:00 into the ACLU video.) At the start of the transcript here, you can see how Hersh was struggling over what he should say:

“Debating about it, ummm … Some of the worst things that happened you don’t know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib … The women were passing messages out saying ‘Please come and kill me, because of what’s happened’ and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It’s going to come out.”
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I pray that it comes out. What is justice but the forceful acknowledgement of the wrong doing by an evil power upon the innocent. America is sick and unless the truth is put forth it will become sicker and sicker.. I do not believe the truth will be put forth.
A fact that can be collaborated by the disclosure of the evidence, American foreign policy is one of a depraved brutal paedophilic policy…Ordered to be so by the President, the department of Justice, the Pentagon, the Joint chiefs of staff, hell by American greatness.
I feel sick. I am going to my bed and I am going to cry.
I despair at this world.

The very thought of United States soldiers anally raping young boys in front of their mothers and the sounds of their screams and crying as they are bring raped MUST be made public.

This is such a nauseating and abhorrent war crime that it MUST be dealt with at the highest levels of international law.

No matter how many times we wash our hands the blood still remains. I do not know how I or any other Americans can sleep at night. (For the record, this American does not sleep well and my days are consumed with trying to find the truth.)

“this American does not sleep well’
I sometimes say things like Fuck America.
Please understand I have the greatest of respect for many Americans. Many of my heros have been or are Americans.
There are many Americans that show their great character here in the comment section.
I have no solution to the problem, America.
I can see the strength of individuals like your self.
But there is a price to pay for having a conscience.

Matthew 3:10 -11
The Mission of John the Baptist
…10″The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11″As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Everyone who becomes saved through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5) will also be baptized by fire as Matthew 3:11 says.

“Fire” in the Bible is often used to refer to trouble or trials that a believer may experience.

1 Peter 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

1 Peter 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: 13 But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

In this life, those who become saved are called not only to believe, but also to suffer for Christ’s sake. Philippians 1:29 For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;

In Mark 10:38,39 Jesus refers to His crucifixion and calls it His “baptism” and says that the disciples will be baptized with the same “baptism”.

Mark 10:38 But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? 39 And they said unto him, We can. And Jesus said unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized:
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Yeah the truth can not be told for reasons of national security.
America can not be seen as it is ,for that would make people understand that America has done illegal, immoral and evil things.
America can not handle the truth so the truth must be kept from Americans.
Imagine if transparency, openness and honesty were to be a feature of American society.
No lies must be put forth by omission.
America could not stand if the truth be told and shown.
Not a pretty picture, of Americans being worse than IS.

The IS are “real terrorists” too. They couldn’t have organized this way or seized power without inflammatory US action, but now they’re here and going strong. Let’s be fair: IS or US, they’re both equally wellsprings of terrorism now, locked in a fight they both enjoy … it’s beyond sad how power corrupts.